


Rivers Running to the Same Sea

by missmungoe



Series: Shanties for the Weary Voyager [12]
Category: One Piece
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Or: the AU where Shakky and Ray raise Makino as their own
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-30
Updated: 2018-06-30
Packaged: 2019-05-31 02:55:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15110363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missmungoe/pseuds/missmungoe
Summary: It's a different port, and a different bar; a different sea altogether, and different circumstances for their first meeting.But it's the same girl, and the same pirate. And it'll be their story, in the end.





	Rivers Running to the Same Sea

**Author's Note:**

> So this is the answer to a request that ran away with me completely. Basically, in the backstory I’ve created for Makino, which is the foundation for all my fics about her, Garp brought her to Fuschia when she was a baby after Shakky found her on her doorstep (if anyone has read both Charybdis and Peony and Silver, you might have made the connection between a certain escaped slave and Shakky’s “little bird” endearment). But in this AU, Shakky decides to raise her.
> 
> So what changes? Well, she’s still raised in a bar, although with a very different mother, and with Rayleigh instead of Garp for a father. She’d be trained in haki from a young age, because Ray would have caught on to that talent pretty quickly. She wouldn’t be so sheltered, but I think she’d still be herself, unfailingly sweet and stubborn, and a little bit cheeky. And as for Shanks…

_14\. 6._

 

“‘Shakky’s Rip-Off Bar’?”

Buggy read the words out loud, frowning up at the sign mounted above the doorway, before snorting. “That some kind of sale’s gimmick?”

“Doesn’t sound very effective,” Shanks agreed, observing the odd establishment; a grey brick building, it was several stories tall and had a green copper roof, dome-shaped in the architectural style he’d seen elsewhere around the archipelago. To say that the sign out front was eye-catching was an understatement, and he couldn’t decide if the name was meant to be cheeky or just honest.

Rayleigh had gone ahead when they’d disembarked, giving no explanation beyond a brief comment that he wanted to greet his family in private, and so they’d idled on the ship until Roger had declared the need for a drink.

Shanks looked at his captain now, having come to stand beside them, seeming to find nothing amiss with the fact that he’d brought them to a bar. “This is where Rayleigh-san’s family lives?” he asked, just to be sure. He’d heard they’d relocated; that they’d used to live in East Blue prior, but a bar seemed like a curious choice, even on this sea.

Buggy looked openly dubious, shifting his eyes between the bar and Roger. “We’re talking about the same Rayleigh, right? All about rules and discipline, has a  _huge_  stick up his—”

“As much as I agree with you about the stick,” Roger interjected smoothly, with a grin, “this is the right place. I know it doesn’t look like his scene, but Shakky’s a barkeep. Well—if the authorities ask, she is.”

Shanks frowned, bemused. “What does that mean?”

Roger just smiled, and said nothing as he strode towards the front door. Shanks shared a look with Buggy, who shrugged, before they fell into step behind him.

They’d just walked through the doorway when a delighted  _squeal_ sounded from within, before the sound of running feet announced a tiny little girl as she threw herself into their captain’s arms.

“ _Uncle Roger!_ ”

He caught her with a hollering laugh, hoisting her into the air, and spun her around until she was shrieking with giggles, clutching at his arms.

Holding her up, he made a show of observing her, and, “Ray, she gets cuter every year,” Roger said, feigning shock. “At this rate, she’ll be cuter than me!”

The girl giggled, delighted by his dramatics. And Roger hadn’t exaggerated; she  _was_  cute, big brown eyes and dark hair cut close to her skull, the sun creeping through the windows tempting a hint of green from it. A tiny, elfin thing, Shanks thought she looked around six or seven.

Lifting his eyes to the bar, he found Rayleigh seated at the counter, an untouched glass at his elbow. Behind him stood a woman, observing them all with a smile. His wife, no doubt. She was pretty, with dark hair and darker eyes, and a cigarette tucked between her fingers.

Shanks frowned, gaze shifting to Rayleigh’s blond hair, and then to the girl on Roger’s arm. And her mother’s eyes were darker than hers, no brown in them, and her hair purely black. She bore little resemblance to either of her parents.

He decided against asking, although from the look Rayleigh was giving him, Shanks wondered if he hadn’t caught on to what he’d been thinking.

“Have you been practicing?” Roger was asking the girl then. She was sitting on his hip. She had a little flower-patterned apron, and her hair was bound back by a sunny yellow kerchief.

She beamed, revealing a missing tooth. “I have! Daddy says I’m getting really good.”

Roger turned to Shanks, pointing. “We’ve got a haki prodigy in our crew, too.” He grinned. “Better watch yourself, Shanks. You’ve got one hell of a contender here. At least where observation is concerned. Very few things get past this one.” He pinched her stomach, eliciting more peals of laughter, until she was hiccuping from it.

Shanks caught her peering at them where they stood in the doorway, wide, curious eyes shifting between them. When she spoke next, her voice was a shy murmur. “Who are they?”

Roger grinned, and leaned his head close to hers to whisper loudly, “They’re my new cabin boys.” Then with a sweeping gesture in their direction, said, “Shanks and Buggy, this is my adorable niece.” He looked at her, his face contorted with an exaggerated frown, feigning confusion. “What was your name again?”

She giggled, and tugged at his moustache. Apparently, this was a well-rehearsed routine. “ _Makino_.”

“She has haki?” Shanks asked, surprised. He’d been told  _he_  was young for demonstrating an affinity for it, but she had to be half his age, at the very least.

“She’s a better student than you are,” Rayleigh spoke up, a familiar wryness lacing the words, but also a palpable pride. Shanks thought the latter belonged to his daughter, not necessarily to him, but then he’d spent most of their last training session showing off, and getting his ass handed to him.

Rayleigh’s eyes gleamed, warm where they settled on the girl. Shanks had never seen him like this. “She’s more patient, anyhow. In a few years, she might even be better at observation, if she keeps to it.”

“Yeah?” Shanks laughed, delighted. He looked at Makino, and found her shyly watching him back. “I’ll take that challenge.”

“What?” Buggy snorted, crossing his arms. “That you’ll be better at observation haki than a little girl?”

Shanks saw Makino’s mouth pursing, gentle irritation knitting her small brow, and felt his grin widening.

“Only an idiot underestimates people because of age and gender, Buggy,” he said, and stuck his tongue out for good measure. He flashed the girl a smile, and saw her returning it, seeming pleased at the small alliance offered. “Makino-chan, was it?”

She nodded. She had her head tucked against’s Roger’s cheek, endearingly shy now with so much attention focused on her.

Shanks just grinned. “Okay. How about this—the next time I visit, I dare you to notice before I step through the door. I won’t make it easy, so you better keep practicing if you want to best me.”

“Big words for such a skinny kid,” Roger said, giving Makino a bounce. “What do you have to say to that, half-pint?”

Her smile brightened, full of innocence untouched by the sea, and none of her earlier shyness left now as she giggled, and declared to Shanks—

“I’ll show you!”

 

—

 

_16\. 8._

 

The next time he stepped through the doorway of Shakky’s bar was a year after the execution.

“Shanks!”

The sound of his name reached him before the girl did. Rayleigh’s daughter— _Makino_ , the name found him as she came running out from behind the counter, kerchief a little askew and a dish-towel clutched between her small hands.

Adopted daughter, he knew now, but brushed the information away before he could do something cruel with it.

She was grinning up at him. Her cheeks had freckled since he last saw her, but she looked the same, tiny and dark haired, and with those too-large eyes. “I sensed you coming!”

It was declared not without a small amount of pride, but he was barely paying attention, eyes roaming the room, looking Rayleigh, even as he couldn’t sense him.

“I’ve been practicing,” Makino said then, the words rushing out of her, and her voice bright with excitement. “Like you said. I’ve gotten a lot b—”

“Where’s Rayleigh?” Shanks asked, cutting her off.

She blinked, surprised by the brusque question, and he saw how she drew back a bit, suddenly wary. She wore all her feelings out in the open, and so loudly she might as well be screaming them.

“H-he’s not here right now,” she stuttered. “But mama is in the back. I could get her—”

“Don’t bother,” Shanks said, already turning for the door. “I’ll find him myself.”

Then he was walking out, and he wasn’t looking at her as he slammed the door shut behind him, but felt when she jumped—like a ripple through a quiet pond. It remained there as he put the bar behind him, begging his notice, until he felt like breaking into a sprint just to get away from it.

And he might have felt bad for callously brushing off a little girl who’d done nothing but be nice to him; who had nothing to do with the world that he could barely breathe in anymore; who represented the little that was still  _good_  in it, the little that was left of Captain Roger, and who didn’t deserve the anger he could barely keep beneath his skin.

But it was hard thinking beyond himself when he was hurting so much he could barely endure  _being_  himself.

 

—

 

_20\. 12._

 

It was four years before she saw him again.

She was walking downstairs for her morning chores, busy tying her kerchief around her hair, when she noticed her mother waiting at the bottom of the steps, a bucket of water in her hands.

“Mama?”

Her expression let nothing slip, but Makino noticed she wasn’t smoking. “Here,” she said simply, handing her the bucket. “For the vagrant on our doorstep.”

Makino blinked, finding her reflection looking up at her from the water, before she lifted her eyes back to her mother. “Vagrant?”

Shakky said nothing, just made a gesture towards the front door, before she headed off in the direction of the storeroom. Makino watched her go, still holding the bucket, before she made to warily approach the door.

She recognised him by his presence first—then by the straw hat pulled over his red hair, and the soft gasp that startled free of her nearly made her drop the bucket in surprise.

Shanks didn’t even stir, passed out on the ground beside their front door. He’d pulled the straw hat down over his brow, but she caught a glimpse of his face, older than it had been when she’d seen him last. He’d grown a beard, and it shadowed his cheeks, which looked sharper. His jaw, too. And he looked unkempt, his shirt rumpled and stained, and he _reeked_  of alcohol even from where she was standing.

Makino wrinkled her nose, peering down at him.  _Vagrant_  seemed suddenly like an all-too fitting term.

She wondered how long he’d been sleeping there, and when he’d arrived. She wasn’t allowed to serve customers after dark, and he hadn’t been in the bar when she’d gone to bed. He must have come in later, and from the state of him, must have stayed late, unless he’d shown up looking like that.

She glanced at Roger’s straw hat again. It looked dirty, like the rest of him, the red ribbon matted and frayed, like he hadn’t been taking proper care of it.

The sight of it had something like anger clenching in her gut, and before she even knew what she was doing she’d emptied the bucket of water over his head.

He came awake with a shout, coughing and spluttering, his eyes wild where they searched for the culprit, before they seized hers—and she felt  _seized_ , Makino thought, the grip of his presence like something had frozen her limbs, and she would have taken a step back if she could have willed her body into moving.

She swallowed thickly, and kept her hands tucked around the bucket. “You were sleeping,” she said, and hoped her voice didn’t waver as much as she feared it did. “We’ll be opening soon.”

There was a second where incomprehension clouded his expression, before he cast his gaze around himself, and recognition was quick to follow as he realised where he was.

His hair was dripping, the water clinging to his lashes and his beard. She watched as he dragged a hand down his face, before he glared up at her. He didn’t have a face for glaring, Makino thought, but didn’t cower under the look.

“Your mother threw me out,” Shanks said then. His voice sounded like he’d been drinking, and not a little bit.

Makino didn’t tell him that she wasn’t surprised, but thought he knew what she was thinking, from the soft scoff he let slip when he looked at her.

She tried to school her expression into something that didn’t reveal everything she was feeling—like her mother could, but no matter how hard she tried, Makino had never been able to copy it; that calm mien that gave nothing away; that kept secrets rather than revealed them to the whole world.

Shanks was still seated on the ground. His shirt was soaked, along with the seat of his pants, and he was shaking the water from his straw hat, muttering under his breath. There was no one else around, but then the sun was barely up, and Sabaody was still shaking off its slumber. There wouldn’t be any customers for a few more hours yet.

Makino listened to the sound of the bubbles popping in the canopy above, fiddling with the empty bucket and feeling suddenly nervous. Her mother hadn’t exactly specified what she was supposed to do after waking him up, and he didn’t seem in a hurry to pick up his feet.

“Where’s your crew?” she chanced after an awkward beat, when he’d put the straw hat back on his head. The impromptu shower hadn’t exactly improved his appearance; now he just looked unkempt and  _wet._

Shanks waved a hand to the grove in the distance. “Around somewhere. Ben will find me if he needs me.”

She cocked her head, smiling. “Aren’t  _you_  the captain?”

“Aren’t  _you_  supposed to be mopping the floor or something?” he snapped, and her smile fell as quickly as it had come.

It was a petulant answer. Makino wanted to tell him, but found her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. She wasn’t good at dealing with conflict, didn’t have an appetite for arguing, even teasingly, and she could feel the tears pressing behind her eyes now, and gripped the bucket tighter, hoping he couldn’t tell how badly her hands were shaking.

She tried to remind herself that he didn’t mean it; that he wasn’t himself. She recognised grief when she saw it, and knew the reason. Her father carried his share of the burden, but it had been five years since the execution. However much he’d loved her uncle, even Rayleigh had accepted that he was gone.

Shanks didn’t seem to have any plans of doing the same.

“You don’t look so good,” she said then, before she could think the better of it. Now that the brim of his hat wasn’t pulled down over his face, she saw that his eyes were red-rimmed, like he hadn’t been sleeping well. Then again, given where she’d found him, she wondered if this might be more than a first-time occurrence.

He let out a bitter laugh. It sounded nothing like what she remembered. “Thanks. Didn’t realise I’d asked for your opinion.”

“You don’t have to be like this,” she said, before she could stop herself, but his reaction had sparked something in her, and she had the sudden urge to snap back.

Shanks looked up at her. It felt like a challenge, but nothing at all like the one he’d offered her once, grinning while she sat on her uncle’s arm. “Like what?”

She pressed her lips together, unsure if she should say anything, if she even dared, but then, “Angry,” Makino said, quietly.

He made a sound, more a huff than a laugh. “Yeah? First it’s your opinion on my appearance, now it’s  _advice_. You’ve sure got a lot to say for someone who isn’t even old enough to drink.” The look he gave her didn’t manage to be convincingly unimpressed, but the spite was worse, somehow, when he asked her, “What  _do_ you know, anyway? You’re just a kid.”

That stung, and she tried not to let it show just how much, although she felt how her cheeks heated, her skin scalded with embarrassment, and fury.

And he was right. She was just a kid, but she wasn’t used to being treated like one—didn’t act in a way that warranted it, beyond the occasional demonstration of obstinacy, but her mother’s patience was an undefeated adversary where that was concerned, and her father had never even raised his voice at her.

“Maybe,” Makino said, and lifted her chin. “But at least I know how to treat people with respect.”

“Congrats,” Shanks retorted. “You’re a  _good_  kid. Too bad this world doesn’t give a shit about good people.”

She felt how her voice wavered, and knew she shouldn’t rise to the bait; that she’d only embarrass herself further if she did, but she couldn’t help it. She always let her feelings get the best of her. “Just because the world is cruel doesn’t mean you have to be.”

Shanks waved her off. “I’m just telling it like it is. Better that you learn now. You’ll thank me one day.”

Makino didn’t think she would. And she felt  _angry_ , then, that he was talking to her this way, like she really was just a brat—as though  _he_  wasn’t the one acting like one.

“Mama was right to throw you out,” she said then, and was glad when her voice remained steady this time. And, feeling suddenly bold, “A-and next time you set foot across this doorstep, you better be  _sober,_ ” she snapped, and before she could burst into tears, turned on her heel and slammed the door behind her.

She heaved for breath, and the tears spilled over, fat with hurt and anger where they ran down her cheeks, but she stubbornly set her jaw against the sob where it shoved up her throat.

Looking up, she found her mother watching, a rare furrow having dipped between her brows, her ageless face yielding some of its years, but she didn’t ask what had happened, and Makino said nothing, just put down the bucket, and ran up the stairs.

 

—

 

He was gone when she came back down, late in the afternoon, her tears long dried and her chores neglected. And maybe it had been childish, staying in her room just to avoid him, but then given his behaviour, Makino felt strangely justified in hers. At least  _she_  had an excuse to act like a child.

Her mother still didn’t ask, and didn’t remind her of the chores she’d skipped out on, just kissed her hair and said, “Good hearts feel strongly, little bird.”

Then, with a tender touch to her cheek where her tears had dried, smiled and said, “You should recognise that. You have the best heart I’ve ever known.”

 

—

 

_23\. 15._

 

Shanks didn’t come back, and for three years she heard nothing, but then—

“Marshall Teach?”

Her parents were talking. It was after closing, only the two of them left in the bar below, and Makino was sitting on the landing in her nightdress, listening, the way she did whenever she couldn’t sleep, and sometimes just because she felt like it.

She loved the sounds of her mother’s bar, the laugher and conversation rising up under the floorboards; the songs she could sing in her sleep, accompanied by the note of clinking glasses, and the pouring of liquor. And she knew every sound, loud and quiet, and loved them all; knew the hidden things, too—the people who whispered across her mother’s doorstep after hours, who she’d never seen but whose presences she recognised from afar. Makino knew them all—the man who always left with more coin than when he entered, and a woman who barely made a sound as she walked. There was one who never said a word, who brought the rustle of paper and left the smell of ink, and a man who always spoke in gruff tones; who felt like a pillar in her mind, who smelled of sea and cigars and who always slammed the door a little too hard when he left.

She loved just sitting there, imagining it all in her head, like she was at the centre of everything, and somehow still outside of it. But most of all, she loved listening to her parents talking, the way they could keep at it for hours, their laughter muted, seeming only for each other. It was the one thing she wanted more than anything—someone who’d love to listen to her talking, even if it was about nothing at all. Someone who could make her laugh like her mother could make her even-tempered father do, his head thrown back, forgetting to be quiet.

It was her mother who’d spoken now, but Makino didn’t recognise the name. And they knew she was there, and that she was awake—she couldn’t fool her father’s senses, but they didn’t tell her to go to bed, although she wondered if they’d adjusted their conversation to accommodate for her eavesdropping.

“He’s been reckless,” her mother said then. There was an odd tenderness in her voice that hadn’t been there a moment ago, and something told Makino she wasn’t referring to this Marshall Teach this time. “You thought something like this might happen. It’s not the first fight he’s picked that’s been a close call.”

A sigh, heavy as her father’s presence. “I had hoped he would come to his senses. He might be brash and impatient, but Shanks has never been short-sighted.”

Her heart skipped a beat in her chest.

“No,” her mother agreed. “But it’s been like this since the execution. It’s like he’s been holding the whole world accountable. No one can carry that much anger for this long. Not even Red-chan.”

Her father didn’t answer, and Makino wondered if he could feel how attentively she was listening now; if her presence gave her away, and if it did, what he found in it. She’d been drifting off to sleep earlier, but the mention of Shanks had wiped it clean from her mind.

She hadn’t seen him since that morning she’d found him sleeping and hungover on their doorstep. She didn’t know why it felt so important to hear about him now; didn’t even know what she wanted to know, only that she wanted  _something_.

“How is he?” her mother asked then, and Makino’s eyes widened.

Her father remained silent, and for so long that she felt suddenly like screaming, something like fear having wrapped around her windpipe, squeezing it, but then, “He’s recovering,” Rayleigh said at length. “Nothing fatal, but he’ll carry the scars for the rest of his life.”

Makino realised she was holding her breath, and let it out, feeling how her shoulders shook from it.

“These kids,” her mother sighed. “Has anything changed since we were that age?”

Her father didn’t quite laugh. “No,” he said. “And I still haven’t decided if that’s a good thing or not. Perhaps it’s the one constant we have in this world.”

Fingers digging into her palms, Makino wrapped her arms around her knees, as though to physically keep herself from springing to her feet and running downstairs, to break the unspoken rule of her silently sanctioned eavesdropping, to ask them what had happened to Shanks, to beg her father to tell her everything.

She didn’t know what it meant.  _Scars._  Whatever had happened, it hadn’t been fatal, but the way her father had spoken had implied something worse than just physical injuries.

But he was alive, that much she could say for certain. And she didn’t know why it mattered so much, only that it did.

Her parents continued talking, the currents of their quiet conversation shifting, to other, safer subjects, and even though she was barely listening now, Makino stayed where she was, arms wrapped around her knees and her thoughts drifting, as she tried in vain to remember the smiling boy who’d once challenged her to best him.

She wondered where he was now—wondered  _who_  he was; if he was still the young man who’d worn his hurt so openly, who’d been so angry at everything, or if the sea had changed him since, for better or worse. She wondered if she’d ever see him again.

She didn’t know why it mattered that she did.

 

—

 

_25\. 17._

 

She found his wanted poster among her mother’s ledgers.

She’d been in the process of stacking bottles behind the bar when one of the account books had fallen off its shelf, landing spine up on the floor and causing a whole stack of wanted posters to scatter across the planks, and her surprised squeak nearly caused her to drop the bottle in her hands as the sheafs of paper came to settle around her, a whole book’s worth.

Observing the mess, she really hoped her mother hadn’t been keeping them in some sort of system. Lowest to highest bounty, maybe? Or by order of attractiveness? She wouldn’t have put the last one past her, for no other reason than to tease her father.

Seated on her knees in the middle of the pile, Makino huffed a laugh, and meant to begin gathering them up when something seized her gaze, halting her.

His hair was what had caught her eye, the red claiming her attention from amidst the hundred different faces looking up at her from the scattered pile of wanted posters.

Putting the bottle down, she hesitated, before reaching to pull it out, quite forgetting about the mess, and her previous task.

She held it between her hands, across her thighs where she sat. A recent edition, from the date printed on the bottom. And the bounty had her brows climbing upwards, but even if it had grabbed her attention, it wasn’t what held it, as she found her eyes seeking the picture above the printed number.

 _Red-Hair,_  they called him now. It was a good fit, but then his hair was one of the things she remembered most clearly, aside from his hurt, and his anger. But the face looking back at her from the wanted poster was nothing like the one in her memory.

He looked different— _older_ , but then it had been five years since she’d last seen him. Her eyes roamed over the picture, taking in the high brow and the sharp, beautiful nose. The wide mouth and the strong, defined jaw. He’d kept the beard, but it was carefully trimmed now, darkening his cheeks where they curved upwards.

He was  _handsome_ , and she realised with a start that she’d been staring at his picture for several seconds, and felt her cheeks warming, but a glance around her assured her she was alone, even as she felt the truth of it in the empty bar, her parents thankfully elsewhere.

She looked back at Shanks’ wanted poster. And she saw the scars, then; the ones her father had referred to that night, but that she’d never been able to make herself ask about. Three brutal lines bisecting his left eye, too deep, too perfect to be accidental. Whoever had given them to him had done so with intent.

The thought had her fingers curling, crumpling the edges of the paper where she gripped it, and she looked at his eyes instead, grey-green and creasing a little at the corners, and that’s when she noticed.

Her heart did a jump in her chest as she realised what it was that kept her so captivated—the thing that marked the biggest difference since the last time she’d seen him. Bigger, even, than the vicious scars, which wanted to claim her attention but couldn’t even hold her gaze, her focus stolen by something else entirely. She found her answer, stretched wide across that attractive mouth, bright and laughing, a challenge and an invitation all at once and nothing of grief or anger or bitterness in the shape, the sight of it so stunning it stole her breath.

He was  _grinning._

And she didn’t notice until her mother pointed it out to her later, that she was doing it, too.

 

—

 

_28\. 20._

 

It was years before he set foot back at Sabaody again.

Shanks looked up at the bar, the same as it had been, even as it showed its years in small ways; moss growing among the bricks, although it seemed more a hint of character than a suggestion of neglect, at least going by the rest of the house. The door looked like it had recently been given a fresh coat of paint, and there were white and pink peonies in the windows, thrown open, the glass gleaming, bright and clean. And the sign was the same; only the name was different.

 _Makino’s_ , it said now, nothing more or less. No cheeky warning of a promised rip-off, just a gentle declaration, as though to say  _come see for yourself._

The sight had his smile widening, remembering the little girl in her brightly coloured kerchiefs and aprons, who’d been the beating heart of this place since the day he’d first set foot inside it.

He was sober this time, and it was with a pang of regret that he remembered her warning, snapped with her breaking voice and her eyes filling with tears. He’d been a grown man and he’d made a girl cry, and for no other reason than because he’d been acting like a bastard, and it might have been eight years but he still thought about the way they’d parted. He’d been so angry back then, but she hadn’t deserved that, and least of all for telling it to him like it was.

Shanks let out a breath, and made to open the door, and was glad when he reached with his right hand without thinking this time. A year since his amputation, but he still found himself trying to use his left for an embarrassing amount of things.

The bell jingled, and he allowed the door to slide shut behind him. The bar was open for business, but it was a bit too early in the morning for any patrons to have stopped by, as revealed by the empty room. But he’d hoped for the chance to apologise to her without an audience present. However many years had passed, Shanks felt he at least owed her that much.

He would have called out to announce himself, but knew he didn’t have to—knew she’dfelt him, by the sound of something dropping to the floor somewhere in the back, before light, hurried footsteps sounded across the floor, as a small shape came running into the room—

The sight of him brought her to a sudden halt, her eyes locked with his, and Shanks clean forgot everything he’d meant to say.

She was older, and of course part of him had known that would be the case, that she wasn’t a kid anymore, or even a teenager, but it had done absolutely nothing to prepare him for how lovely she’d become, and faced with it now, all Shanks was able to do was gawk.

She’d always been tiny, but the years had made a woman of the slip of a girl he remembered, slender shoulders curving under the capped sleeves of her sundress, the sloping neckline baring her collarbones and seizing his gaze without mercy. She still wore her hair in a kerchief, with a colourful apron to match, hugging her dainty waist in a way that was wholly unfair, and what had he come in here for again?

It took him a second to gather himself, and to scramble his scattered brain together for a response that wasn’t just to blurt  _holy shit, you’re cute._

“Makino-san,” Shanks said, and had to clear his throat with a laugh. He hoped she hadn’t noticed just how wildly the sight of her had thrown him off course. “I don’t suppose you remember me?”

She smiled, and his heart proceeded to do something completely ridiculous.

“I remember,” she said, still smiling, her eyes sweeping over his shape once, before lifting back to his. “Although the clean shirt and the groomed beard threw me for a moment.”

She had a lovely voice, and the gentle cheek seemed wonderfully comfortable in it. Her mother’s daughter, although hers was a much brighter thing, nothing ambiguous about it, seeming honest almost despite herself.

Shanks was painfully aware of just how wide his grin had stretched, and tried to soften his aggressive delight with a self-deprecating chuckle. “Yeah, well. My brief stint of vagrancy didn’t work out in the long run. It takes so much maintenance, you know? Looking artistically  _un-_ groomed.”

Her smile pursed her mouth further, a lovely cupid’s bow. “If that’s what you want to call it.”

Fuck, that  _stupid_  grin. He couldn’t even help it. “I’m as sober as I’ve ever been, though,” he said. “I remember there being issued a requirement? By which I mean a blatant threat.”

Her cheeks flushed at the mention, the sight rendering him momentarily incapable of thought, as Makino cleared her throat and conceded with a murmur, “I might have come off a bit strongly.”

Still grinning, Shanks shook his head. “Believe me, I needed to hear it. You would have been well within your rights if you’d chased me off your doorstep with a broom. My memories are a little blurry, but I’m pretty sure I threw up on it. Might have just been a hangover dream, though.”

“Oh no, you did,” she said, sweetly prim.

His answering sigh held a laugh. “And here I was fishing for a ‘no, Shanks, you were a perfectly honourable tramp who managed to keep his liquid dinner in his stomach, where it should be’.” At her enduring smile, his own turned sheepish. “You could always get the broom now if you feel like it? Give me a belated smacking?”

He hadn’t meant for it to sound so— _flirtatious._  He really hadn’t. Or…okay, maybe he’d meant it a little bit, but then it was difficult keeping his wits about him when she kept _smiling_  like that.

He saw as her gaze shifted to his left side, remaining there a second, and Shanks didn’t have to wonder long if she’d heard about the arm. Given her mother’s connections, she’d probably been one of the first to hear about it.

Her eyes lifted a bit then, to the scars on his face, and this time he did wonder if she knew, as the slight furrow between her brows suggested curiosity, and something he couldn’t name, something suddenly  _fierce_  that brought him back to the young girl who’d stood over him with a bucket, who’d seen all his hurt and who’d felt it as her own.

“I’m here to make amends,” Shanks said then. He didn’t need to force his grin to soften this time, and his sincerity wasn’t feigned. “For how I treated you back then.”

Her expression eased a bit, understanding smoothing her brow, and she shook her head. “There’s no need,” Makino said. “That was a long time ago.” Then, the corners of her mouth quirking, “And I threw a bucket of water at your head. I don’t blame you for being a little irritable.”

His grin was too startled for self-deprecation. “‘Irritable’ is one word for it. I was going to go with ‘a prickly, selfish ass’, but I like your description better. Makes me look better, anyhow, and I could use a little of that these days.”

He didn’t mention the arm, or the scars, but it was implied. And Makino said nothing, but Shanks saw where her eyes went, and found them saying enough. She still had an incredibly honest face. The opposite of her mother’s, whose smiles gave away nothing, least of all the truth.

He didn’t even try to pretend that he wasn’t delighted by the blatant appreciation bared by her whole expression, and the slight touch of pink in her cheeks. Shit, but she was stunning. It was a little distracting.

“I saw the sign out front,” he said then, before he could accidentally blurt something else. “You run this place now?”

He knew perfectly well he’d already answered his own question, but it was for his own sake that he’d asked—to keep himself talking, if only to keep his eyes from lingering too long on the delicate line of her collarbones, or her warm-brown eyes where they watched him, framed by those thick, dark lashes.

Makino smiled, and brushed her hands over her apron. She looked pleased at the observation—and that she was well aware of why he’d asked, but, “I do,” she said. “Mama retired last year.” Her eyes twinkled. “From the bar, anyway.”

He grinned. “Knowing your mother, she’s still keeping busy.” He looked around the bar then. “Is Rayleigh-san around?”

He realised a second later just how _that_  might have sounded, given that he was doing a truly terrible job pretending that he wasn’t openly flirting with her, and he tried not to wince.

Makino didn’t seem to have noticed. “He is, although I haven’t seen him in a few days, but that’s daddy for you. He’ll probably show up when he hears you’ve docked.”

Shanks smiled. “Then I’ll stick around until he does.” He tilted his head a bit then, observing her. “He still teaching you?”

Makino hummed; a soft, clever sound. “I stopped needing teaching a few years ago,” she told him, wholly demure, even as her eyes shone. “But I keep my skills sharp.”

He tried not to let it show how much he loved the way she’d phrased it as a challenge. “Yeah?” he chuckled, and couldn’t keep the fondness from creeping into his voice, or his affected smile. “Figured you would.” He sought out the quiet surface of her presence, not a single ripple in it now. Calm, like a perfectly still sea. “You know, I never did get back to you on that.”

The way her eyes curved at the corners had his heart doing that thing again. “Came to test my merit at last?” she asked. “You’ve taken your sweet time.”

God, how long had he been grinning? Did she think it was weird? _Was it?_  “Better late than never, right?” he laughed.

Makino just looked at him, still smiling, and for an entirely disconcerting second, Shanks wasn’t sure what she was thinking, but then, “Ready when you are, then,” she said, and the remark had barely left her mouth before he had to physically wrangle his thoughts into safer waters, and away from the suggestion that was entirely his own imagination, found in the quiet lilt of her voice.

Oh, Rayleigh was going to  _murder_  him.

“Later,” he said, and heard how rough his voice sounded. And it wasn’t because he didn’t want to see her skills in action that he said it; quite the opposite, but for some reason he felt suddenly loath to break the easy conversation with her, wanting to hear her talking. He wanted to know what it would take to make her laugh again.

He smiled, and wondered if it let slip as much as he thought it did, as he told her, “But I will take you up on that.”

He could tell she heard what the words suggested by the slight widening of her eyes, but then he’d meant for her to hear it. And maybe he’d wilfully set a perilous course for himself, ropes slack around the mast and heedless of the dangers he already felt stirring when he looked at her, but when her smile brightened like that, Shanks didn’t think he could have turned back if he’d been forced to.

He was, he realised suddenly, still standing just before her doorstep, as though he’d been waiting for her approval to come further inside. Strange. He didn’t usually need an invitation.

Her eyes were smiling, lovely and dark, brown like polished timber and the gold of a good liquor. And he couldn’t remember how long he’d even been standing there; couldn’t recall the morning that had passed before he’d stepped across her threshold, and the whole sea he’d put behind him, coming here.

He waited for that familiar gut-feeling, the sense he had sometimes that something important was about to happen, but watching her now, Shanks didn’t feel it in his gut but in his chest; an entirely new sensation, although it didn’t feel any less significant.

“Well, then,” Makino laughed, a soft, spellbinding sound that made him wonder if he hadn’t been entirely too obvious about what he was thinking, before her eyes met his and her voice lifted like her smile, full of that demure cheek—

“Can I get you anything, Captain, or are you going to continue blocking my doorway and hindering my business?”

 

**Author's Note:**

> As much as I've come to adore this AU, there are some things that kill me, in no particular order:
> 
> \- Emiko would be truly alone, up until her death  
> \- Garp isn't Makino's almost-father  
> \- Dadan and Makino's friendship doesn't exist in this  
> \- Makino wouldn't be there for Luffy and Ace growing up (although there might be a future instalment of this including both Ace & Luffy stopping at the archipelago and Makino's bar......and I also kind of want to write Rayleigh training his adorable daughter in haki....)
> 
> ....this is going to get more parts, isn't it.


End file.
